Chet Atkins Chet Atkins - Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop

Paul McCartney and Chet Atkins Photo courtesy of Chet AtkinsIt’s followed in the medley by “Mister Sandman,” the1954 Chordettes pop chart topper which became Chet’s firstcountry chart entry in 1955. ‘Chet Atkins and his Gallopin’Guitar’ rode their version to #13 on the country chart.“Wildwood Flower,” next up in this medley, was the tuneChet played at his first noteworthy performance when hewas 10. He recalls being surprised to hear the Carter Familyrecording some years later, since it was a tune everyonewhere he grew up in east Tennessee knew. Chet’s fans havesometimes remarked that they prefer “Wildwood Flower” asan instrumental, since the lyrics “don’t make any sense.” That’sbecause it’s a casebook example of a folk song cobbled togetherfrom different sources in a manner mystifying to logicalexplanation. Maybelle Carter remarked, “My grandmotherknew that song,” and folklorists trace it to a couple of Victorian-eraparlor songs, “I’ll Twine Midst the Ringlets” and “ThePale Amaryllis.”“The Bells of St. Mary’s” follows, a gem Chet first recordedin 1953. Rich Kienzle calls his “sparkling fingerstyle version”of this 1917 vintage tune (popularized by Big Crosby in a1946 film of the same name) “among his most memorableperformances, even today.”The fifth number in Chet’s medley, “In the Good Old Summertime,”is older yet: it shares with “The Entertainer” a 1902publication date. Chet may have been inspired to play it bythe 1952 version of Les Paul and Mary Ford.14